Current Issue : October - December Volume : 2015 Issue Number : 4 Articles : 6 Articles
Vasmol ingestion with suicidal intension has increased among rural Indian population. There are increasing reports of vasmol poisoning cases because of easy availability and high lethality. Several brands are available in the market among that supervasmol 33 is a most popular hair dye. The main component of hair dye causing toxicity is paraphenylene-diamine (PPD). This compound causes oedema of the tongue, rhabdomyolysis and renal failure. Here we reported a 37 year old female consumed hair dye with liver enzymes and urine examinations were altered....
A birth defect is an abnormality present at birth that affects the body structure or functions and may threaten a baby’s health. Birth defects caused by environmental factors, inherited factors or both. The idea that birth defects are primarily due to genetic damage are changed by two major discoveries: Maternal rubella causes birth defects (1941) and Thalidomide causes birth defects (1960). It is now known that about 20 drugs or groups of drugs can cause human birth defects. They are responsible for about 1% of all human birth defects. By far the most important of these drugs are the anticonvulsants, anticancer agents, androgenic hormones, antithyroid drugs, aminoglycoside antibiotics, retinoic acids, ACE inhibitors, tetracyclines, coumarin anticoagulants etc....
Adverse reaction monitoring and reporting are very important in identifying the adverse reaction trends in the local population. This study was aimed to analyse the adverse effects due to antimicrobial agents reported to a regional pharmacovigilance centre. A study was conducted in a teaching hospital in Chennai for a period of one year. All ADR forms due to antimicrobial agents submitted to the regional pharmacovigilance centre between Jan 2014 to Dec 2014 were collected and analysed. The factors studied include age, gender, drug classification, departments from where reports were obtained, types of events reported, outcome of the reaction, causality assessment, preventability and severity of ADRs. The study revealed that ADRs were more common in male patients 33 (58%) and the age - wise distribution revealed that the Adult patients had more ADRs 25 (43.85%). Cephalosporins and fluroquinolones 19 (33.33%), were the most common causative antibiotics. Maximum number of ADRs were reported from the dermatology department 27 (47.36%) and Fixed drug eruption was the most reported event. The severity assessment revealed that most of them were mild (68.42%) followed by moderate and severe reactions. Of the reported ADRs, Type A 45 (78.94%) was more common compared to Type B 12 (21.05%) reactions. Preventability studies revealed that 12 (21.05%) of the ADRs are definitely preventable. Causality assessment showed 73.68% was “Possible” according to WHO scale. Most of the patients were medically treated and recovered from the event. When prescribing drugs in daily practice, clinicians should take antimicrobial-related ADRs into consideration, especially when patients receiving antimicrobial therapy have new clinical manifestations after initiation of antimicrobial therapy. Also, health system needs to promote spontaneous reporting of ADRs detected in clinical practice to regional pharmacovigilance centres....
Nevirapine is the first drug of non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) class to treat seropositive patients, administered along with protease inhibitors and/or NRTIs. Nevirapine binds directly to reverse transcriptase (RT) and blocks the RNA-dependent and DNA-dependent polymerase enzyme. Exfoliative dermatitis is wide spread erythema and scaling of skin caused by pre-existing skin disorders, drugs and cancer, unknown causes. HIV infected patients are more prone to exfoliative dermatitis. This is a case report of 30 years male seropositive patient admitted in dermatology department with complaints of scaling over the skin since 9 days and had history of present illness started over the face and then extended to involve the trunk area and flexors the upper limbs and up to mid-thigh. He was taking zidovudine, lamivudine and efavirnz, but by mistakenly he was dispensed with nevirapine. The reaction started immediately after taking ZLN regimen. On the day of administration of the drug he developed itching and within 3 days scaly lesions are present over the body. He had a past history of similar complaints on intake of nevirapine. The lesions are erythematous and scaly plagues were present over the face, neck, trunk and back. The patient was diagnosed as nevirapine induced exfoliative dermatitis. De-challenge test was done and we performed ADR analysis which proved it as probable ADR....
Telogen effluvium (TE) is the common cause of diffuse nonscarring hair loss. TE is caused by any disruption of hair cycle resulting in increased, synchronized telogen shedding. In children, TE has been reported to be responsible for only a minority of cases with hair loss. The functional mechanism of shedding in majority of these cases is immediate anagen release. A male child of age seven years presented the out-patient department of DVL, RIMS Kadapa, with the history of shedding of hair on head and eyebrows. He is a known congenital heart disease (ventricular septal defect) for which he has undergone ventricular septal defect closure surgery. After a period of six months, shedding of hair on the head and eye brows was noticed. After examining the patient, the dermatologist diagnosed as telogen effluvium and prescribed mometasone furoate (synthetic corticosteroid with anti-inflammatory activity), betamethasone, ferrous fumarate (used to treat anaemia not enough red blood cells in the blood) and isotretinoin. Based on the pathogenesis of TE, potential therapeutic options include inhibition of catagen (so as to prolong anagen); induction of anagen in telogen follicles; or inhibition of exogen (to reduce hair shaft shedding). Differentiating TE from other causes of diffuse nonscarring hair loss can indeed be a daunting task. A number of factors have been implicated in the causation of TE, however, clear evidence in their support is lacking. Possible treatment options for TE, especially the chronic form, are not many. Treatment for TE is primarily reassurance and counselling....
The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of pharmacists’ intervention on medication adherence for patients with cardiovascular disease. A prospective randomized interventional comparative study was carried out in a 300-bedded multispecialty tertiary care hospital. The study subjects (N=50) were patients who were admitted in the cardiology department during the six-month study period. Medication adherence behavior of the patients and reason for non-adherence were studied using Morisky self-report scale. The main outcome measures were improvement in medication adherence of patients and improvement in cardiovascular health with effectiveness of therapy at the end of 6 months. Mean age of the group under study was 56.94 years (range = 21 to 90 years). There were 19(76%) male patients in the control group and 15(60%) male patients in the test group. Approximately 80% of the patients had more than one chronic health conditions. All the patients (100%) were non-compliant to therapy at baseline interview. In this study unintentional reasons for non-adherence have been reported more frequently than intentional. The most prevalent causes of non-compliance were forgetfulness (66%), altering dosing schedule for convenience (48%), medications too expensive (36%) side effects of drugs (24%) and thinking medication not effective (16%). The most commonly reported reason for unintentional non-adherence was forgetfulness (66%). In our study the patients in the test group showed improvement in their medication compliance at the end of pharmacist intervention. At baseline intervention the test group had an adherence level of 39.75%, which increased to 83.5% at the final intervention. Whereas in the control group which did not involve any kind of interventions showed an adherence level of 52% at baseline which decreased to 50% at the final intervention. The study resulted in increased medication adherence and effectiveness of therapy. This study also had an impact on improvement of cardiovascular health and promoting awareness to the importance of medication adherence in CVD....
Loading....